Technology in language teaching

Development of Multimedia Applied in English Teaching

According to Mudge , Multimedia applied in English teaching may include four stages. The original stage can be dated back to the 1950s when only a few foreign language institutes started to employ phonograph, broadcast, movie, tape recorder and other current media in foreign language teaching. During that time, audio and video were once considered a significant revolution to the teaching of foreign language. Following in the 70s and 80s, audio and video developed dramatically with the advancement of electronic technology. Electronic taping, slide projectors, videocassette players, language labs and other electronic devices were included in this era. By the turn of 90s, multimedia technology was becoming increasing available in foreign language instruction because of the development of computer technology and the coming of the digital revolution. In the early 2000’s, the internet became a powerful medium for the delivery of computer-aided learning materials. The internet provides a worldwide means to get information, lighten the work load, and communicate with each other at any time and at any place. CALL which is Computer Assisted Language Learning came into play during the later part of the 20th century. Warschauer divided the history of CALL into three stages: behavioristic CALL, communicative CALL, and integrative CALL. Behavioristic CALL applied in 1960s and 1970s was based on the behaviorist learning and featured repetitive language drills. The computer was regarded as a mechanical tutor to deliver the materials to the pupils. An example of a behaviotistic CALL strategy is PLATO [4].
PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations), the best-known tutorial system, is a special hardware consisting of extensive drills, grammatical explanations, and translation tests at various intervals. The next stage, communicative CALL, appeared in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It focused on the communicative teaching method and encouraged pupils to generate original utterances through the process of discovery, expression and development rather than just repeat the prefabricated language. Pupils were supposed to make use of the computer or the hardware to assist them in language learning. What they actually work with is not the computer but their classmates or teachers. In this model, the computer is viewed as stimulus or tool. Popular CALL software developed in this period included word processors, spelling and grammar checkers. Following this stage is the third stage, integrative CALL which included the development of multimedia computers and the Internet. This model not only integrates various skills (e.g. listening, writing, speaking and reading) but also bonds different technologies serving as effective and comprehensive tools for language learning and teaching. With integrative CALL, teachers were moving away from communicative perspective of teaching to a more social way, which emphasizes the language use in authentic social environments. Applying this multimedia networked computer in the language class provides pupils a more effective means to learn English. For instance, pupils can have rapid access to the background, grammatical or vocabulary explanations, pronunciation information while the main lesson is in the foreground. Besides, pupils under this model are usually encouraged to engage in their own language development rather than learn in a passive way. The history of CALL suggests that multimedia can serve a variety of purposes for language teaching. It can serve as a tutor to offer language drills or a stimulus to stir pupils to think. With the advent of the advanced technology and internet, computer usage in language teaching provides an authentic environment for pupils to communicate with native speakers in an inexpensive means [5].
Nevertheless, the application of multimedia in English teaching is not as widely used as expected. A reason for this could be the underdevelopment of technology and immature pedagogy about using multimedia in teaching foreign languages. For example, multimedia cost is high and not all educational institutions can make use of this tool. In addition, many teachers are not trained in using multimedia to teach English. According to Gong & Zhou, some teachers who have been aware of the applicability of multimedia teaching tend to focus on the flowery and fancy courseware and neglect the teaching aim, teaching object and teaching content, so the whole English classroom would become a demonstrating hall of computer functions.